Right through the heart of Lucknow, the Gomti river once flowed like a living artery — nourishing farms, recharging water reserves and shaping the cultural and ecological identity of the region, without any obstruction. Today, that river is suffocated under the heavy weight of development. What has happened to the Gomti is not an ordinary event, but a story of planned cultural and human degradation — written by planners and land developers who saw neither life nor rights in the river, only real estate possibilities.
The deception began with the creation of Gomti Nagar — a township built on the river’s own floodplain drained by two small rivers, the Kukrail and the Sahiri. Land that nature had given to the river to handle seasonal overflows, recharge groundwater and sustain the wetlands along the river was cut, levelled and sold for commercial and residential projects. From that moment on, the Gomti’s expanse, its breath, its survival, became subject to the innumerable demands of a growing city.
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